Under normal circumstances María would have stood up and walked out, ignoring the temptation. It wasn’t the offer of cash that triggered her curiosity, more the hint of supplication in the last sentence. After that arrogant lecture about the animal kingdom, it was as if all the wind had been taken from Agla’s sails, leaving her adrift. There was a vulnerability in her eyes that María had never seen before and the hand that held the paper coffee cup trembled slightly.

Agla was wearing a blue-grey cashmere sweater that María had seen before and been envious of; this time she wore it over a roll-neck top and tracksuit bottoms, and the sweater was creased and stretched, as if it had been slept in.

‘I’m looking for information,’ Agla said. ‘Information that could be useful to both of us.’

‘Information that you want me to get hold of illegally,’ María said firmly.

‘You must still have contacts at the special prosecutor’s office,’ Agla said. ‘All I’m talking about is someone doing you a small favour by getting hold of data that’s partly in the public domain already.’

‘I’m not interested in hearing more unless you tell me honestly why you need to know this,’ María said.

‘That should be obvious,’ Agla said. ‘I’m in prison. So my ability to find out what I need to know is limited.’

‘I mean, what are you going to do with this information? It surely doesn’t happen that all of a sudden, up here in Hólmsheiði, you decide that you need information about the financial status of particular companies.’

Agla sighed and stared searchingly at her for a moment. María could tell from the look in her eyes that she was turning things over in her mind.

Eventually Agla sighed again and sat up straight in her chair.

‘You have to give me your word that you won’t publish anything until I give the word. And you have to keep my name completely separate from any media coverage of all this. OK?’

‘Then this has to be something juicy,’ María said. It would have to be something big to make up for sacrificing an opportunity to write about Agla.

Agla looked her in the eye, and María saw a smile appearing a little at a time on her face, until it reached her eyes.

‘Believe me,’ she said, giving María a conspiratorial wink. ‘This is as juicy as it gets.’

19

‘This is fucking ace!’ Gunnar crowed in delight at the sight of the boy’s stock of fireworks.

They had sneaked out of gym class to meet the boy who called himself Mr Firecracker online, and who seemed to stock up on fireworks around New Year and then sell them at triple the price over the subsequent months. He was a head shorter than either of them and at least a year younger. He must attend another school as Anton had never seen him before.

‘What school do you go to?’ Anton asked.